One World Religion: Peres at the Vatican this Week

Ninetey-one year old Former Israeli President, Shimon Peres, spent 45 minutes at the Vatican with Pope Francis September 4, to discuss one-world religion. In a September 9, Jerusalem Post article he is quoted, stating his proposal for a “Charter of United Religions.”

He is enamored with the Pope, referring to him as “Holy Father.”

“In fact,” Peres clarified, “he is perhaps the only truly respected leader” in the world today.
While Francis has refrained from commenting on Peres’s assessment, that same silence permits it. It also permits the framework of Peres’s idea to be tested in the crucible of world opinion.
“The United Nations has had its day,” Peres opined. “What we need is an organization of United Religions, a United Nations of religions.” (emphasis mine)
“This will be the best way,” he continued, “to fight terrorists who kill in the name of faith.”
Accordingly, “there should be a Charter of United Religions, (emphasis mine) just as there is a UN Charter. This is what I have proposed to the pope.” (Sept. 10, Jerusalem Post)

Later in the article the pope is again touted as “the” man for the position by Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi, the Vaticans’ representative to the United Nations.

The Vatican’s representative to the United Nations, Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi, was effusive about Peres’s “perception of Pope Francis, not only as leader of the Catholic Church, but also as a symbol of all religion in the modern world. This is,” he said, “a significant turning point in history.” (Sept. 10, Jerusalem Post)

Also in the mix of emcumenical thinking is Italy’s spokeman for Islam, Yahya Pallavicini. 

Italy’s spokesman for Islam liked everything that Peres said. Handsome, articulate and Western in his manner, Yahya Pallavicini is imam of the al-Wahid Mosque in Milan and vice president of the Islamic Religious Community of Italy, a.k.a. Coreis, a community solicitous toward Christians and Jews.
Pallavicini praised Peres as “a man particularly inspired, combining Jewish faith with political experience. I fully agree” with his proposal to the pope, he said.
In fact, he continued, “Pope Francis may be the most authoritative representative” of “spiritually sensitive” religious leaders in the world today. “I, a Muslim, have much to learn from him,” he said. (Sept. 10, Jerusalem Post)

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The author of the Jersusalem Post article is Middle East correspondent and Jerusalem Bureau Chief for IRN-USA Network News. Follow him on Twitter @BrianSchrauger. Originally published at BridgesForPeace.com.